


ghostly, mostly

by jasperrose



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasperrose/pseuds/jasperrose
Summary: Salathiel and Serene stream on Twitch. Not often together, but for Halloween, they’ve decided to do something special: A collaborative ghost-hunting stream.It turns out better than expected.





	ghostly, mostly

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little ghost au based off of a dnd game i run! it’s meant to be very lighthearted lol

Sal is starting to think that this was a bad idea.

Sure, he’s done streams with Serene before. They’re usually chaotic and messy, but the fans love them. He felt a bit weird about it at first - he’s thirty-one, for God’s sake, and he’s streaming with a twenty year old? He’s definitely gotten call-out posts written about him on some site for it.

But he’s gotten more comfortable with the younger woman since. She’s genuinely funny and interesting, once you get past the constant insults and the refusal to call him by his real name. Most of the bickering is just a show they put up for the viewers - they eat that shit right up. It makes him laugh to think about the constant posts on Twitter saying that they hate each other and shouldn’t stream together.

So, no, he’s never really thought a stream was a bad idea - if you forget the stream where he met a sub goal and was forced to eat M&Ms out of his mask like a horse. Slowly.

Besides that.

Sal doesn’t necessarily regret the idea of this stream. It seems fun enough, anyways, and they promised to do it - he can’t really just say “oh no, guys, we’re not  _ actually  _ going to do the Halloween stream you’ve waited several months for”. It’s not like he’s scared of ghosts - he just doesn’t think the stream will be very entertaining, because, well. They don’t exist.

Serene thinks very differently.

Sal watches (slightly fondly) as she bounces around, setting up the spirit box and the multiple other tools and contraptions she’s collected. They’ve stationed themselves in an abandoned cottage in the woods that Sal is 80% sure they’re not allowed to be in. There’s some sort of sensor-thing going on to his left, and the spirit box is set up to his right. The camera is positioned at an angle a little ways away so it catches everything in its view, and Sal has his laptop on the ground next to him, reading the pre-stream chat.

“Okay,” Serene speaks up, startling Sal. “I’ve set everything up, I think. I just gotta turn the sensors on, and then I’ll turn the box on when we start.” Sal only nods, breaking out into a slight grin when he sees someone go ‘you think the ghosts will be hot?’ in chat. ‘Maybe’, he replies, and the chat goes wild.

“What are you laughing at, skull-boy?” Serene teases, her usually flat voice lilting a bit in excitement as she walks over, presumably finished turning the sensors on. “The chat.” He says, turning his laptop towards her so she can see. She quickly spots his message and what he’s replied to and she snorts, shaking her head and going towards the camera.

“You ready?” She asks, and he nods again, nervous butterflies fluttering in his stomach.  _ What if this goes wrong?  _ The evil little voice in his head says. “Always.” He says instead.

Serene nods with a sharp grin and a thumbs up and turns the camera on, quickly going to her spot across from him on the (presumably rotting) hardwood floor. Sal sets the laptop next to him as Serene starts off the stream. 

“Hello everyone! You’ve been waitin’ on this one for a while, huh? Well, it’s here now, so no more complaining.” Serene says, quick and witty, and Sal rolls his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose over-dramatically. It’s easy to fall into the role of his streamer persona, and he and Serene riff off each other for a few minutes before Serene dips into a more serious voice.

“Alright. So, today, we’re gonna see if ghosts are real.” She says, completely serious, and Sal can’t stop the exasperated snort that escapes him. She shoots him a glare and then turns to the camera again, waving the spirit box around. “This here is a spirit box. It picks up on radio waves, and spirits can manipulate them to talk through the box.” She speaks loudly, like any ghosts in the vicinity will be able to hear her.

“It’s also loud as fuck.” Serene warns the viewers. “If you’re sensitive to that sort of shit, you can tune out now. We can’t exactly turn it down.” Sal nods - he’s heard it before, briefly, and yes, it’s loud. Very loud.

“Alright, I think we’re ready! Can we get some pogs in chat?” Serene hypes up the stream while Sal reads the chat, rolling his eyes for the second time that night as the chat suddenly floods with the exact thing Serene had requested. “I hate that emote.” He sighs as he sees a :salpog:, an emote Serene had specifically requested for an artist friend of theirs to make after he’d very specifically requested for her  _ not  _ to do that. In response, the chat floods with the emote. “I hate it here.”

Serene laughs, that bass-filled chuckle of hers, and goes to switch the spirit box in. They both flinch as the loud static suddenly bursts into the air, startling them both. Serene has to almost yell over the sound as she says, “Okay, yeah! Any spirits that are here, you can touch this box or whatever and talk through it. I don’t know how hard it’ll be, but you can-”

“ _ Hel - ll - o?” _

Sal nearly shits himself.

“Oh my god.” Serene says in shock - clearly, she wasn’t expecting something so soon. She quickly jumps back into her persona, though her excitement is real. “Hey! Hi. Um, hello. Do you live here?” She asks, while Sal stares at the spirit box like it’s personally beat him over the head with a metal pipe.

“ _ Y- yes. With-”  _ It cuts out for a moment, before it talks again, slower. “ _ With others.” _

“Others?” Sal squeaks, and Serene lights up. “Chat, you fucking seeing this?” She whisper-screams at the camera before going back to her business. Sal can confirm they’re seeing it, as the chat is moving too fast for him to read anything other than key smashes and hurried question marks.

“ _ Chat? _ ” The box asks, and Sal nearly shits himself for the second time that night. That confirms it, then. That it’s not random radio waves, and that the ghost - whatever it is - is actually  _ speaking to them. _

Serene, for her part, looks delighted. Sal wishes, not for the first time, that he could punch her in the face without consequences. 

“Chat, yeah! Uh, you’re being recorded. Is that okay?”

Static bursts out of the box, and it takes a second before Sal realizes it distantly sounds like multiple people talking - maybe two or three.

Serene backpedals. “If not, that’s fine, we-”

“ _ It’s fine. _ ” The glitchy voice says, and sounds… different. Yeah, that’s definitely a different voice talking now. 

“How many of you are there with us?” She asks eagerly, and Sal feels himself leaning forwards, anticipating the question.

The spirit seems to hesitate. “ _ Three. _ ” The box says, and Sal chokes. “That’s a lot of dead people.” He mumbles without thinking, and winces as the spirit box bursts into static again, thinking he’s angered them - before he realizes it sounds like laughter. 

Serene looks towards him with shining eyes. “Three.” She echoes, and Sal nods slowly. She looks down at the box in between them. “What are your names?”

Another moment of hesitation, before the first ghost speaks again, slow and deliberate. “ _ Alextris. L- _ ” It cuts out for a moment before resuming. “ _ -krin, and Yorzire. _ ”

Strange names, but who is Salathiel Lancelot Supersad to judge? He just listens and watches Serene’s reactions and movements with her hands as she speaks. He doesn’t think he’s seen her this excited and active since they did Just Dance, and as strange as the situation is, he likes it.

“Didn’t catch that middle one.” She says carefully, and the box glitches out the name.  _ Lokrin _ , it says, and Sal finds himself thinking that it’s a nice one. He wonders who it’s attached to.

The box speaks before Serene, this time. “ _ Why are you here? _ ” It says, as clear as it’s been, and Serene seems almost… nervous, as she explains. “Well, we-” She gestures to herself and Sal. “Promised our viewers that we’d go ghost searching for Halloween. Seemed to work.” She laughs, and the box skips over a few glitches, sounding like a woman laughing along. 

They talk a bit longer - they learn that the ghosts don’t know how long they’ve been dead, and when they make the mistake of asking how they died, the box roars out static and the sensors go crazy. Fortunately the first ghost - Alextris - seems forgiving enough. They learn that Yorzire, the third seemingly silent ghost, is southern when he first speaks haltingly into the box. That sends Serene rolling.

Eventually, after a three-hour stream, they have to pack up. Serene spews out as many questions as she can in the last few minutes of the stream, and Alextris answers most of them. Sal asks a few questions of his own, and the second ghost, Lokrin, seems to answer those the most.

Serene explains that they have to go, and the ghosts are understanding, if not a little sad-seeming. Serene reassures them that they’ll definitely be back - if not Sal, then herself, one-hundred percent. That seems to placate them.

Walking out of the cottage with their things, Serene shoots a wide-eyed, exaggerated look to Sal and goes, “How would you feel about this becoming a thing?”

“What, like a ghost-hunting series?’ He scoffs, before realizing that’s exactly what Serene means. Sal shrugs, slowly. “I wouldn’t mind. This was fun.”

Serene pumps her fist into the air, whooping, and Sal swears he hears faint laughter on the wind.


End file.
